Nina's Journey
by Starsa83
Summary: Octover 23rd, 2077. Nina Barnes is attending a medical conference in WAshington DC. What happened on that day will changer her world, her life her fate, forever. She is on a journey. Where? Only the Fates know.
1. Chapter 1

October 23rd 2077, Washington DC.

Dr Nina Barnes sat in the conference hall with a few hundred other doctors, nurses and others from the medical fields. She had travelled a long way from her home country of Australia to attend this conference despite the threat from the Chinese.

It was something she would later regret.

They were taking a coffee break from the conference when the warning sirens sounded. People stood up and looked around, the first sirens were a 'prepare' alarm. some people were muttering about it being another drill and went back to their coffees andnewpapers, while others looked concerned.

"What's going on Jim?" she asked one of her newfound friends from the conference

Dr Jim Hornsby looked at Nina. "It's probably just another drill. you know, with the Commies getting all itchy fingers over there I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did eventually press that button. But then again we are pretty itchy too!" he laughed.

Another siren wailed, higher pitched and with more urgency than the last. Coffee mugs dropped to the ground.

"Everyone evacuate now! Get to a bomb shelter or underground! The Chinese have launched, and they didn't hold back, looks like we got ten minutes until the first ones hit... oh Jesus Christ we launched too! "Screamed someone who sat near a radio.

Panic set in, men and women ran for the nearest exits, elevators were called, but the fire escape stairs were now flooded with bodies trying to get out to a fallout shelter.

Nina felt herself being pushed along with the rush, unable to stop the fear and panic overwhelming her. She looked about as some people fell beneath the rushing group of medical personnel, crushed beneath well cleaned shoes and high heels; their cries of pain were muffled beneath the panicked cries of the disorderly evacuation.

Sounds from down on the street greeted her ears as the sea of panic left the building, some broke away to find a basement further down the stairwells, while Nin was washed out into the streets where more people were panicking. There were some fallout shelters nearby, people were screaming about getting to the Vaults that were nearby, she knew she would have no hope of getting to one of the but that was ok, there was a small fallout shelter only block away, others in the area were filling up quickly.

She took off her heels and ran down the block through the throng of people who were running in the other direction. Her heart hammered in her chest as she reached the fallout shelter's doors just as someone was closing them.

The doors slammed shut with a finality that was as scary as the situation itself. People cried and whimpered in fear, others prayed to God, while some just sat and looked defeated. Nina looked over to a little girl who had a cut on her head.

"Hi sweetie..." she said, as she knelt down to the child. "Can I have a look at that?" she said as she pulled out a small first aid kit that she kept in her bag. The little girl held tight to a teddy bear and nodded. Nina smiled and pulled out a band aid, after cleaning the cut she put it on the girl's cut. She smiled; it was a Captain Cosmos band aid, with a picture of Jangles the Moon Monkey on it.

"There you go." she smiled and sat down next to the girl. "Where's your mummy?" she asked

"Don't know..." the girl said as she began to cry.

Suddenly the ground rumbled and shook. People screamed and the lights flickered.

"This is it..." someone said to the flickering lights above. A small amount of dust fell from the ceiling as more distant thuds and rumbles reverberated through the Fallout shelter.

They lost track of how many actually fell. But it was over in two hours. Two long hours of fear.

Nina held tight to the little girl and sang a children's song to her, each taking comfort in the other. "It's ok sweetheart, we will be fine." she soothed the girl

"Fine?" said one man, the look of terror deeply settled in his face.

"You think we are going to be fine? How do we even know that this shelter is radiation proof huh? We're all going to die in here, every last one of us," he got up and started pointing at the people who huddled in fear. "You, and you, you and you and you!" he shrieked. "You're all fucking dead, everyone!" he cried hysterically.

Another man stood up and grabbed the fellow by the collar. "You will shut your mouth, you're scaring everyone and I think we are all quite scared enough thank-you." he said as he shook the hysterical man for good measure.

The man broke down in heavy sobs and collapsed to the ground in a heap.

Nina looked up. "There a Geiger counter in this shelter?" she asked out aloud.

Someone went to one of the shelter's supplies cupboards.

"There's a bit of dehydrated food and bottles of water, though not enough to last the two weeks that they recommended in the Civil Defense preparation course I took. They said after two weeks from the first strike it should be safe to venture out, the Radiation levels should be negligible." he looked deeper into the cupboard. "Low on medical supplies as well, but no Geiger counter."

The man who had shaken the Hysterical fellow looked around. "Ok, then we have to ration what we have. If anyone has any food on them, or water, bring it here, and we will put it in the cupboard to keep safe and ration it."

Nina looked up. "Any alcohol too, we can use it for medicinal use, I'm a doctor." she said. The man nodded to her.

"That's a great idea, thank you, Doctor...?" he asked her name

"Nina Barnes." she replied with a small smile.

"I'm Garry, Garry Smith." he said as he took her hand to shake


	2. Chapter 2

The first night was the worst, they listened to the screams of the poor should who were not vaporised in the first initial blasts, their cries of agony and their banging on the fallout shelter door kept everyone's nerve frayed, but the survivors could not even think of opening the shelter's door, lest they cause the exposure of the people here.

"The Government will come and help us soon." one lady said with confidence, which was soon shot down.

"Don't be silly, they are the ones who got us into this whole mess in the first place, they are probably all gone, dead and vaporised." another man said as he re-read the same articles in the newspaper as he had twenty times before.'

The conversations were muted, hushed and the boredom settled in to keep everyone, well... very bored. There were only three children in the shelter, one was the little girl and there were your boys around 10 and 12 years of age. They played and roughhoused and played silly pranks on each other, often bumping into one of the shelter dwellers as they chased each other around.

Nerves were frayed even more when the hysterical man could not stand it anymore and made a break for the door.

He had been muttering to himself for the last day, they were almost a week after the bombs falling on DC, food supplies were starting to become a concern, and stomachs were growling. But it was his constant insane muttering that had started to get on everyone's nerves.

One night, they heard the door opening, people awoke with a start, and the fresh smell of burning 'everything' wafted in to the shelter. people cried out in dismay when they saw the red glow of fires still burning, intermixed with a green tinge from the Nukes clear to see through the open shelter door.

"Close the Door! Close the Door!" one woman shrieked. She too became hysterical from what she had seen.

A pile of burned bodies lay at the entrance to the Shelter, a crazed man sat before the bodies and had pulled off a leg and was gnawing at it, so great was his insane hunger.

Garry pulled a pistol from his vest and aimed it at the crazed man. Nina ran to the little girl and hid the child's face and blocked her ears for what was to come.

The feral light in the man's eyes shone, reflecting the light that came from the shelter as he chewed open mouthed, the burned flesh of the dead. He snarled with an animalistic snarl and scratched the side of his head; flesh came away, along with some of his hair. He snarled and hissed again at the people in the vault and moved to approach them. Garry squeezed the trigger and shot the man in the head. He then calmly stepped up to the door and closed it, once again sealing them in.

Nina sighed. And wondered how much radiation they had just all taken in. Garry looked grim, he too knew it and he sat down beside Nina with an air of despair.

"We have enough Rad-x for almost everyone here, but I don't know how bad the count is out there still, Do we wait or do we go?" he wondered.

"Let's take a vote..." Nina suggested. "I'm thinking to stay here for another week, the longer the better, but I know others want to seek out their families and see if they have survived, I on the other hand have nowhere else to go, it's not like I'm going to get back to my home country anytime soon." she sighed and stroked the girl's hair.

Garry nodded. "Ok." he said and stood up.

"Right so I know that a few of you want to go out and see if your families have survived, it's no secret that our food supplies are dwindling, and our water is low. There is enough Rad-x left for about twenty people, so if you want to, twenty of you can leave, and take a rad-x. That leaves about fifteen of us left here." he sighed. As he looked out at the group.

"I know the odds aren't great either way, but it's up to you if you want to stay or if you want to leave. I'm going to stay here for at least another week, hopefully by then it might be safer to leave than it is now with the rad count going down, but then we have no Geiger counter to tell what the count is like."

"What about a weapon for those of us who are wanting to leave?" one man asked.

"You might have to use whatever you can find, wooden planks, steel bars, you might even find a gun or two on someone if you're lucky, I don't thin that vehicles would work, EM pulses from Nuke usually kill much of the electronics, but I heard that some of the newer Corvegas have a pulse shield, so you might be lucky" Garry looked to the group.

"So, who will leave and who will stay?"

Nina looked at the group, all were tired and despairing and they just wanted to go back to their lives, impossible now that the world had burned in atomic fire. No one knew what was safe anymore  
"I'll stay for another week at least." Nina said as she stood up, the little girl holding her hand. Some moved over to stand with her, others moved towards the door indicating their desire to leave. Once all was settled, there were twenty five people who were eager to face the horrors outside, ten left to stay in the shelter.

Nina handed out the last twenty Rad-x pills and bid them all farewell. The group moved out quickly, Garry shutting the door behind them. Nina sighed, it was far quieter now, and the place seemed very empty with just the ten of them in there now. She sat down and ran a hand through her hair. A large clump came away in her hand.

"Oh... Shit." she muttered, looking at the strands that lay about in her fingers.

Garry came over to her and saw the hair in her hand. "I've... been losing hair too, and some of the others have not been feeling well either. So far I've managed to keep my food down but just barely." he sighed heavily.

"It's radiation poisoning isn't it?" he asked her.

"Yes." she said simply.

"Prognosis?" he asked her, looking concerned, but already knowing the answer in his heart.

"Not good, we are dying." she said simply. "the radiation will kill us on a genetic level, unless we can get some Radaway and rad-x, we will continue to get sicker and sicker, lose our hair, vomiting and diarrhea, lose our teeth, then we just die." she said sadly.

"Well... I guess that's it then..." he muttered.

"No, It's not, We may not have the supplies here to help, but I can go back to Our Lady hospital and get some Radaway and rad-x, Stimpacks too, maybe some more food, if we filter Rad-x with the food it should be safe to eat." she explained.

Garry sighed. "Ok, I don't like it, but ok." he pulled out his gun. "Do you know how to use one of these?" he asked handing the 10mm pistol handle first to her.

"It's an automatic?" she asked him. He nodded

"Yeah point and shoot, you have about 11 rounds left in that clip," he pulled another clip out of his vest "and 12 in this one, use them wisely, head shots drop them quick." he said as he handed her the other clip.

"You sure you can do this?" he asked her. "Want me to come along?"

Nina shook her head. "No, I will be faster on my own and the less exposure the less Radaway I'll have to use to clear the rads from my system." she said as she pulled on a backpack that someone had left behind. She emptied it of everything but a few bottles of water and some food.

"I'll be back as soon as I can." she said as she paused at the door. Garry leaned over, took her by the shoulder and kissed her.

"For luck." he said sheepishly.

Nina blushed, not sure what to make of it. "Thanks." she replied. She turned and looked at the little girl, who ran to her and hugged her tight. "Hey sweetheart, it's ok, I'll be back soon." she said as she ran her hand over the girl's head, curly blonde locks came away in her hand. She looked at the golden curls and almost cried in dismay.

She had a purpose now; she had to get the Radaway for the people in the shelter.

She moved out, prying the child from her leg, and letting Garry take her. "I'll be back soon." she said as she headed out into the ruined city.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a scene of utter devastation that greeted her.

The streets were eerily silent, all but for a wind that blew through the tall buildings, sentinels of a world that was but for a week ago bustling and full of life, with people going about their business while the governments of the world played with fire... nuclear fire.

There was glass, bodies, burned cars and debris everywhere. The place was hot with fires and she could feel her stomach roiling. There was no way she could tell how much radiation she was getting exposed to, she coughed a little, the taste of blood in her mouth. Her skin felt dry and cracked a little when she ran her hand over her arm.

She stopped and stared at one shelter's doorway. In the concrete that surrounded the heavy door, there was a shadow of a man, he was reaching out to another family when the bombs had dropped, his shadow burned forever into the concrete by the bright flash of the bombs going off. His body vaporised.

Nina moved on shuddering with the thought of suddenly being nothing, not there, gone. And continued on towards the Statesman Hotel and the Our Lady Hospital.

She was surprised to find the doors of the hospital hadn't been broken down, she pushed through to the reception area, and bodies lay about in various poses of death. The Radiation had taken many of them swiftly, others had writhed in the burning agony of their bodies being genetically untraveled.

She sighed and moved to the wards, finding some of the first aid boxes had already been pilfered. She moved quickly through to the dispenser, there was much good she could do with the supplies, but the radiation here as still quite high. She looked through the dispensary and grabbed as much of the Rad-x and Radaway as she could. She injected herself with two pouches of Radaway and popped a rad-x, undoubtedly saving her life.

She scratched at her cheek and noticed skin flaking off, and then some flesh. She looked up in horror, catching sight of herself in the mirror. There were a few small chunks of her skin missing, and much of her hair. There was also something strange happening with her eyes. One was starting to look cloudy, yet she hadn't noticed any changes to her vision.

She screamed and ran her fingers over her face, more flesh came away. She gasped for air and breathed harshly, hyperventilating, she forced herself to calm, and picked up the med-x, injecting herself with a dose, yet it was strange she had felt no pain with her flesh slewing from her bod, it looked a lot worse than it really was. There was only the top layer of skin really, some fatty tissue and muscles were still attached, and some of her skin was still there. Surely it would grow back?

She took a deep breath and calmed herself again; she finished grabbing what she could and hunted down a Geiger counter from the X-ray maintenance department. She flicked it on, the rads here were high, and she knew she would have to keep pumping herself full of Radaway if she stayed here.

She turned and ran grabbing the backpack as she went, stopping only twice on the way back to the shelter to inject the Radaway. She knew that they could not stay where they were, the radiation would kill them in a few days let alone a week. The Geiger counter's constant clicking a deadly reminder that time in this place would more than likely lead to their deaths.

She ran past a broken down Corvega and heard a whimper. She stopped and turned to see a puppy, his body covered in radiation burns. She looked at the poor thing and reached out to touch him, the puppy growled and snarled at her, snapping his jaws at her. She backed away and pulled the gun, knowing that there was little that she could do to help him. She aimed the gun at the pup and pulled the trigger.

Birds flew from the roofs of the buildings around her as the shot echoed through the empty streets. The body of the pup lay still in the back seat of the Corvega and Nina moved on with an empty feeling in her soul and the Geiger counter clicking merrily away its song of danger.

It took her longer to return to the shelter than it had to get to the hospital. She banged on the door hard three times to let Garry know she was there, on the third strike the door opened of its own accord. The iron tang of blood greeted her. She looked inside the shelter, and saw the still bodies of Garry and the others who had shared the shelter with her.

She moved in quickly to check them. Their eyes were open and the looks on their faces was one of shock and surprise. She could not see the little girl's body anywhere and assumed that she was either hiding or had run away. She hoped desperately that the child was hiding; Nina shook with the shock that had finally hit in, that she was now alone in this hell hole, away from her home, her country, everything she knew. She didn't know who to seek out for help, or where to go. But she knew that the city was not safe at all. There was a town she knew that there was a place called Springvale nearby, and wondered if she could actually get there.

She sighed and stocked up on what food she could, it would be no use to the dead, but it might be of some use to her. The Geiger counter clicked a constant reminder to her that she was on borrowed time while she stayed in the area. She sighed and knelt down, closing each person's eyes as she passed them.

She heard a noise, and turned the Geiger counter crackling as she turned. She looked and saw the small figure, patches of skin slewed from its body, no hair upon its head. Nina could not even tell if it was male or female, until she saw the last few curls of hair.

It was the girl whom she had comforted during the bombing. She had gone so quiet in the last few days, Nina thought it must have been the shock of her losing her hair at such an alarming rate, and her skin too.  
The child breathed heavily with a rasp that could almost be called a death rattle. She looked at Nina, blood dribbled from her mouth and hands, in which it held something… Nina looked down and to her shock saw it was a human arm… torn form one of the dead and gnawed upon she gasped and backed away, the child looked up at her and snarled, just like the man that Garry had killed did.

The gun was aimed at the little girl's head, it shook in her grip, and the child looked up at her with a strange little growl, almost like the puppy. Nina sobbed, she tried to squeeze the trigger, but couldn't there was something that she felt for this girl, a kinship that she could not explain. She lowered the weapon and moved away from the girl as she looked at Nina, she held out the severed arm to her back, an offering which Nina ignored.

She stopped by the door and heaved until clear bile tinged with blood came up. She looked around, holding the pistol in her shaking hand, desperate for a choice, she looked at the gun in her hand and whimpered, tears falling from her eyes to burn at her dry, cracked skin as her despair struck her hard.

She placed the gun at her temple as she sobbed and steeled herself to pull the trigger.

She could not do it. She stopped and opened her eyes to the world.

There must be survivors; they would need help, if she could survive the poisoning, pump herself full of Radaway and rad-x, find a place to ride the worst of it out, and if she survived she would seek them out.

People always needed a doctor, and she had a feeling that now they would be in very short supply.


End file.
